Chapter Xi. Local Surnames

"Now as men have always first given names unto places, so hath it afterwards grown usuall that men have taken their names from places"

(VERSTEGAN, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence).

There is an idea cherished by some people that the possession of a surname which is that of a village or other locality points to ancestral ownership of that region. This is a delusion. In the case of quite small features of the landscape, e.g. Bridge, Hill, the name was given from place of residence. But in the case of counties, towns and villages, the name was usually acquired when the locality was left. Thus John Tiler leaving Acton, perhaps for Acton's good, would be known in his new surroundings as John Acton. A moment's reflection will show that this must be so. Scott is an English name, the aristocratic Scotts beyond the border representing a Norman family Escot, originally of Scottish origin. English, early spelt Inglis, is a Scottish name. The names Cornish and Cornwallis first became common in Devonshire, as Devenish did outside that county. French and Francis, Old Fr. le franceis, are English names, just as Langlois (l'Anglais) is common in France. For the same reason Cutler is a rare name in Sheffield, where all are cutlers. By exception the name Curnow, which is Cornish for a Cornishman, is fairly common in its native county, but it was perhaps applied especially to those inhabitants who could only speak the old Cornish language.

CLASSES OF LOCAL NAMES

The local name may range in origin from a country to a plant (France, Darbishire, Lankester, Ashby, Street, House, Pound, Plumptre, Daisy), and, mathematically stated, the size of the locality will vary in direct proportion to the distance from which the immigrant has come. Terentius Afer was named from a continent. I cannot find a parallel in England, but names such as the nouns France, Ireland, Pettingell (Portugal), or the adjectives Dench, Mid. Eng. dense, Danish, Norman, Welsh, (Walsh, Wallis, etc.), Allman (Allemand), often perverted to Almond, were considered a sufficient mark of identification for men who came from foreign parts. But the untravelled inhabitant, if distinguished by a local name, would often receive it from some very minute feature of the landscape, e.g. Solomon Daisy may have been descended from a Robert Dayeseye, who lived in Hunts in 1273. It is not very easy to see how such very trifling surnames as this last came into existence, but its exiguity is surpassed in the case of a prominent French airman who bears the appropriately buoyant name of Brindejonc, perhaps from some ancestor who habitually chewed a straw.

An immense number of our countrymen are simply named from the points of the compass, slightly disguised in Norris, Anglo-Fr. le noreis, [Footnote: The corresponding le surreis is now represented by Surridge.] Sotheran, the southron, and Sterling, for Easterling, a name given to the Hanse merchants. Westray was formerly le westreis. A German was to our ancestors, as he still is to sailors, a Dutchman, whence our name Douch, Ger. deutsch, Old High Ger. tiutisc, which, through Old French tieis, has given Tyas. [Footnote: Tyars, or Tyers, which Bardsley puts with this, seems to be rather Fr. Thiers, Lat. tertius.]

But not every local name is to be taken at its face value. Holland is usually from one of the Lancashire Hollands, and England may be for Mid. Eng. ing-land, the land of Ing (cf. Ingulf, Ingold, etc.), a personal name which is the first element in many place-names, or from ing, a meadow by a stream. Holyland is not Palestine, but the holly-land. Hampshire is often for Hallamshire, a district in Yorkshire. Dane is a variant of Mid. Eng. dene, a valley, the inhabitant of Denmark having given us Dench (Chapter XI) and Dennis (le daneis). Visitors to Margate will remember the valley called the Dane, which stretches from the harbour to St. Peters. Saxon is not racial, but a perversion of sexton (Chapter XVII). Mr. Birdofredum Sawin, commenting on the methods employed in carrying out the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon race, remarks that--

"Saxons would be handy To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy"

(Lowell, Biglow Papers).

The name Cockayne was perhaps first given derisively to a sybarite--

"Paris est pour le riche un pays de Cocagne" (Boileau),

but it may be an imitative form of Coken in Durham.

Names such as Morris, i.e. Moorish, or Sarson, i.e. Saracen (but also for Sara-son), are rather nicknames, due to complexion or to an ancestor who was mine host of the Saracen's Head. Moor is sometimes of similar origin. Russ, like Rush, is one of the many forms of Fr. roux, red-complexioned (Chapter II). Pole is for Pool, the native of Poland being called Polack--

"He smote the sledded Polack on the ice" (Hamlet, I. i).

But the name Pollock is local (Renfrewshire).

COUNTIES AND TOWNS

As a rule it will be found that, while most of our counties have given family names, sometimes corrupted, e.g. Lankshear, Willsher, Cant, Chant, for Kent, with which we may compare Anguish for Angus, the larger towns are rather poorly represented, the movement having always been from country to town, and the smaller spot serving for more exact description. An exception is Bristow (Bristol), Mid. Eng. brig-stow, the place on the bridge, the great commercial city of the west from which so many medieval seamen hailed; but the name is sometimes from Burstow (Surrey), and there were possibly smaller places called by so natural a name, just as the name Bradford, i.e. broad ford, may come from a great many other places than the Yorkshire wool town. Rossiter is generally for Rochester, but also for Wroxeter (Salop); Coggeshall is well disguised as Coxall, Barnstaple as Bastable, Maidstone as Mayston, Stockport as Stopford. On the other hand, there is not a village of any antiquity but has, or once had, a representative among surnames.

NAMES PRECEDED BY DE

The provinces and towns of France and Flanders have given us many common surnames. From names of provinces we have Burgoyne and Burgin, Champain and Champneys (Chapter II), Gascoyne and Gaskin, Mayne, Mansell, Old Fr. Mancel (manceau), an inhabitant of Maine or of its capital Le Mans, Brett and Britton, Fr. le Bret and le Breton, Pickard, Power, sometimes from Old Fr. Pohier, a Picard, Peto, formerly Peitow, from Poitou, Poidevin and Puddifin, for

Poitevin, Loring, Old Fr. le Lohereng, the man from Lorraine, assimilated to Fleming, Hammy, an old name for Hainault, Brabazon, le Brabancon, and Brebner, formerly le Brabaner, Angwin, for Angevin, Flinders, a perversion of Flanders, Barry, which is sometimes for Berri, and others which can be identified by everybody.

Among towns we have Allenson, Alencon, Amyas, Amiens, Ainger, Angers, Aris, Arras, Bevis, Beauvais, Bullen, Boulogne, Bloss, Blois, Bursell, Brussels, Callis and Challis, Calais, Challen, from one of the French towns called Chalon or Chalons, Chaworth, Cahors, Druce, Dreux, Gaunt, Gand (Ghent), Luck, Luick (Liege), Loving, Louvain, Malins, Malines (Mechlin), Raynes, Rennes and Rheims, Roan, Rouen, Sessions, Soissons, Stamp, Old Fr. Estampes (ttampes), Turney, Tournay, etc. The name de Verdun is common enough in old records for us to connect with it both the fascinating Dolly and the illustrious Harry. [Footnote added by scanner: Some modern readers might not realise that Weekley was referring to Harry Vardon, a famous golfer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Dolly Varden was a character in Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge", a pretty girl in flowered hats and skirts. Her name was borrowed for various clothing styles, breeds of flowers, shows, theatres and even angling fishes among other things. There seem to have been several references to "the fascinating Dolly Varden", though the expression does not occur in the book.] To the above may be added, among German towns, Cullen, Cologne, and Lubbock, Luebeck, and, from Italy, Janes, Genes (Genoa), Janaway or Janways, i.e. Genoese, and Lombard or Lombard. Familiar names of foreign towns were often anglicized. Thus we find Hamburg called Hamborough, Bruges Bridges, and Tours Towers.

To the town of Angers we sometimes owe, besides Ainger, the forbidding names Anger and Danger. In many local names of foreign origin the preposition de has been incorporated, e.g. Dalmain, d'Allemagne, sometimes corrupted into Dallman and Dollman, though these are also for Doleman, from the East Anglian dole, a boundary, Dallison, d'Alenc on, Danvers, d'Anvers, Antwerp, Devereux, d'Evreux, Daubeney, Dabney, d'Aubigny, Disney, d'Isigny, etc. Doyle is a later form of Doyley, or Dolley, for d'Ouilli, and Darcy and Durfey were once d'Arcy and d'Urfe. Dew is sometimes for de Eu. Sir John de Grey, justice of Chester, had in 1246 two Alice in Wonderland clerks named Henry de Eu and William de Ho. A familiar example, which has been much disputed, is the Cambridgeshire name Death, which some of its possessors prefer to write D'Aeth or De Ath. Bardsley rejects this, without, I think, sufficient reason. It is true that it occurs as de Dethe in the Hundred Rolls, but this is not a serious argument, for we find also de Daubeney (Chapter XI), the original de having already been absorbed at the time the Rolls were compiled. This retention of the de is also common in names derived from spots which have not become recognized place-names; see Chapter XIV.

But to derive a name of obviously native origin from a place in France is a snobbish, if harmless, delusion. There are quite enough moor leys in England without explaining Morley by Morlaix. To connect the Mid. English nickname Longfellow with Longueville, or the patronymic Hansom (Chapter III) with Anceaumville, betrays the same belief in phonetic epilepsy that inspires the derivation of Barber from the chapelry of Sainte-Barbe. The fact that there are at least three places, in England called Carrington has not prevented one writer from seeking the origin of that name in the appropriate locality of Charenton.